MY DEAR FRIEND: You will possibly think, that this letter turns upon
strange, little, trifling objects; and you will think right, if you
consider them separately; but if you take them aggregately, you will be
convinced that as parts, which conspire to form that whole, called the
exterior of a man of fashion, they are of importance. I shall not dwell
now upon these personal graces, that liberal air, and that engaging
address, which I have so often recommended to you; but descend still
lower, to your dress, cleanliness, and care of your person.
When you come to Paris, you may take care to be extremely well dressed;
that is, as the fashionable people are; this does by no means consist in
the finery, but in the taste, fitness, and manner of wearing your
clothes; a fine suit ill-made, and slatternly or stiffly worn, far from
adorning, only exposes the awkwardness of the wearer. Get the best French
tailor to make your clothes, whatever they are, in the fashion, and to
fit you: and then wear them, button them, or unbutton them, as the
genteelest people you see do. Let your man learn of the best friseur to
do your hair well, for that is a very material part of your dress. Take
care to have your stockings well gartered up, and your shoes well
buckled; for nothing gives a more slovenly air to a man than ill-dressed
legs. In your person you must be accurately clean; and your teeth, hands,
and nails, should be superlatively so; a dirty mouth has real ill
consequences to the owner, for it infallibly causes the decay, as well as
the intolerable pain of the teeth, and it is very offensive to his
acquaintance, for it will most inevitably stink. I insist, therefore,
that you wash your teeth the first thing you do every morning, with a
soft sponge and swarm water, for four or five minutes; and then wash your
mouth five or six times. Mouton, whom I desire you will send for upon
your arrival at Paris, will give you an opiate, and a liquor to be used
sometimes. Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal, than dirty
hands, and ugly, uneven, and ragged nails: I do not suspect you of that
shocking, awkward trick, of biting yours; but that is not enough: you
must keep the ends of them smooth and clean, not tipped with black, as
the ordinary people’s always are. The ends of your nails should be small
segments of circles, which, by a very little care in the cutting, they
are very easily brought to; every time that you wipe your hands, rub the
skin round your nails backward, that it may not grow up, and shorten your
nails too much. The cleanliness of the rest of your person, which, by the
way, will conduce greatly to your health, I refer from time to time to
the bagnio. My mentioning these particulars arises (I freely own) from
some suspicion that the hints are not unnecessary; for, when you were a
schoolboy, you were slovenly and dirty above your fellows. I must add
another caution, which is that upon no account whatever, you put your
fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nose or ears. It is
the most shocking, nasty, vulgar rudeness, that can be offered to
company; it disgusts one, it turns one’s stomach; and, for my own part, I
would much rather know that a man’s fingers were actually in his breech,
than see them in his nose. Wash your ears well every morning, and blow
your nose in your handkerchief whenever you have occasion; but, by the
way, without looking at it afterward. There should be in the least, as
well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, ‘les manieres nobles’.
Sense will teach you some, observation others; attend carefully to the
manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion, and
form your own upon them. On the other hand, observe a little those of the
vulgar, in order to avoid them: for though the things which they say or
do may be the same, the manner is always totally different: and in that,
and nothing else, consists the characteristic of a man of fashion. The
lowest peasant speaks, moves, dresses, eats, and drinks, as much as a man
of the first fashion, but does them all quite differently; so that by
doing and saying most things in a manner opposite to that of the vulgar,
you have a great chance of doing and saying them right. There are
gradations in awkwardness and vulgarism, as there are in everything else.
‘Les manieres de robe’, though not quite right, are still better than
‘les manieres bourgeoises’; and these, though bad, are still better than
‘les manieres de campagne’. But the language, the air, the dress, and the
manners of the court, are the only true standard ‘des manieres nobles, et
d’un honnete homme. Ex pede Herculem’ is an old and true saying, and very
applicable to our present subject; for a man of parts, who has been bred
at courts, and used to keep the best company, will distinguish himself,
and is to be known from the vulgar by every word, attitude, gesture, and
even look. I cannot leave these seeming ‘minutiae’, without repeating to
you the necessity of your carving well; which is an article, little as it
is, that is useful twice every day of one’s life; and the doing it ill is
very troublesome to one’s self, and very disagreeable, often ridiculous,
to others.
Having said all this, I cannot help reflecting, what a formal dull
fellow, or a cloistered pedant, would say, if they were to see this
letter: they would look upon it with the utmost contempt, and say that
surely a father might find much better topics for advice to a son. I
would admit it, if I had given you, or that you were capable of
receiving, no better; but if sufficient pains have been taken to form
your heart and improve your mind, and, as I hope, not without success, I
will tell those solid gentlemen, that all these trifling things, as they
think them, collectively, form that pleasing ‘je ne sais quoi’, that
ensemble, which they are utter strangers to both in themselves and
others. The word aimable is not known in their language, or the thing in
their manners. Great usage of the world, great attention, and a great
desire of pleasing, can alone give it; and it is no trifle. It is from
old people’s looking upon these things as trifles, or not thinking of
them at all, that so many young people are so awkward and so ill-bred.
Their parents, often careless and unmindful of them, give them only the
common run of education, as school, university, and then traveling;
without examining, and very often without being able to judge, if they
did examine, what progress they make in any one of these stages. Then,
they carelessly comfort themselves, and say, that their sons will do like
other people’s sons; and so they do, that is, commonly very ill. They
correct none of the childish nasty tricks, which they get at school; nor
the illiberal manners which they contract at the university; nor the
frivolous and superficial pertness, which is commonly all that they
acquire by their travels. As they do not tell them of these things,
nobody else can; so they go on in the practice of them, without ever
hearing, or knowing, that they are unbecoming, indecent, and shocking.
For, as I have often formerly observed to you, nobody but a father can
take the liberty to reprove a young fellow, grown up, for those kinds of
inaccuracies and improprieties of behavior. The most intimate friendship,
unassisted by the paternal superiority, will not authorize it. I may
truly say, therefore, that you are happy in having me for a sincere,
friendly, and quick-sighted monitor. Nothing will escape me: I shall pry
for your defects, in order to correct them, as curiously as I shall seek
for your perfections, in order to applaud and reward them, with this
difference only, that I shall publicly mention the latter, and never hint
at the former, but in a letter to, or a tete-d-tete with you. I will
never put you out of countenance before company; and I hope you will
never give me reason to be out of countenance for you, as any one of the
above-mentioned defects would make me. ‘Praetor non, curat de minimis’,
was a maxim in the Roman law; for causes only of a certain value were
tried by him but there were inferior jurisdictions, that took cognizance
of the smallest. Now I shall try you, not only as ‘praetor’ in the
greatest, but as ‘censor’ in lesser, and as the lowest magistrate in the
least cases.
I have this moment received Mr. Harte’s letter of the 1st November, N.
S., by which I am very glad to find that he thinks of moving toward
Paris, the end of this month, which looks as if his leg were better;
besides, in my opinion, you both of you only lose time at Montpelier; he
would find better advice, and you better company, at Paris. In the
meantime, I hope you go into the best company there is at Montpelier; and
there always is some at the Intendant’s, or the Commandant’s. You will
have had full time to learn ‘les petites chansons Languedociennes’, which
are exceedingly pretty ones, both words and tunes. I remember, when I was
in those parts, I was surprised at the difference which I found between
the people on one side, and those on the other side of the Rhone. The
Provencaux were, in general, surly, ill-bred, ugly, and swarthy; the
Languedocians the very reverse: a cheerful, well-bred, handsome people.
Adieu! Yours most affectionately.
P. S. Upon reflection, I direct this letter to Paris; I think you must
have left Montpelier before it could arrive there.